Upon printing data such as text data, image data, or the like edited by an application program for editing text or image data, a print preview function that presents an image to be printed on the screen in a print layout to the user before the image is actually printed on a paper sheet is known. The print preview function is included in the application program, and has only a function of displaying a preview image.
The user checks an image to be printed exploiting this print preview function, and can re-edit it by the application program until an ideal layout is realized.
However, the print preview function provided by the application program cannot display, as a preview image, an image which reflects various print conditions that a printer driver can set. Also, the user must set the size or the like of a preview image in accordance with the screen size, resulting in troublesome operation. For example, even when the user wants to simultaneously display preview images for several pages, the application program displays them with an arbitrary size and layout in response to a preview display instruction. For this reason, the user must re-set the size and layout after display. Even when the user re-sets them, a preview image is not always displayed according to that layout in which the image is to be printed.